Good bye Daylight Savings Time

Well, having an extra hour to sleep is always good, and we needed it Saturday night as Alex needed to sleep in our bed after 4, he's just so wiggly and I'm not one to share my pillow!

We had a very nice weekend and productive. I raked a portion of the yard Saturday while Matt resealed some shingles and trimmed the tree that was rubbing against the house when windy. The boys went to get their hair cut and I went on a fruitless boot hunt but did find Alex some Christmas jammies ;) Saturday night I went to bed at 10 after getting mad for stitching in the wrong colour, after picking up what I thought was the rest of the white thread but when I put it under my mock ott-lite it wasn't the same, probably one of the shaders.

Due to our unexpected bedroom guest we didn't make it to church this morning but did attend the area's neighborhood watch halloween party. Alex had a great time roasting weenies, playing games, chasing the other power ranger and facing off against the three darth vaders. He even came in second place in the guess the weight of the pumpkin contest and won himself a cheeseburger and fries from mcdonalds. We also carved pumpkins today, we had so much fun carving our big one that we carved our two decorative pumpkins too! I have a tonne of seeds to roast when I find my recipe!! I also made some really good low fat/low cal pumpkin muffins out of Crazy Plates, much moister than my weight watchers recipe for them and for about the same points. I've done some frogging and stitching tonight as well as set up for the trick or treaters as I won't be getting home first tomorrow night. Now off to bed...

TGIF!

I'm so looking forward to the weekend. I'm hoping to get some stitching in on The Wedding and hopefully either finish off HP & and the goblet of fire or be pretty close, although we'll have to take a break in there somewhere to carve the pumpkin ;)

Last night was relatively quiet, with the exception on a new cousin (second or third, I forget how that goes) for Alex and a note from school informing us about performances and that the money was due yesterday, sheesh. It also involved getting groceries (my least favorite chore) and getting to bed early. ;) Oh and I did wrap 3 christmas gifts!! Another one of Matt's gifts arrived in the mail yesterday (thankfully on a day where he doesn't get to the mail first ;)) so now he's pretty much shopped for, dad's done and so is my brother Steven, plus most of Alex's toy related gifts are bought too! I love being almost done early!

Rita Skeeter Returns!

I have now renamed 'crazy bus stop mom' to Rita Skeeter, when she showed up at the bus stop (to drop off mittens for her son) today my stomach did a flip flop. Why Rita Skeeter, well for anyone who's read at least the 4th Harry Potter book they'd know that (unless there's some epiphany at the end of the book that I still haven't gotten to, hopefully today on the elliptical...) she's someone who takes and ounce of the truth and twists it into a tonne of tabloid news. So today instead of having our little mother son talk at the bus about our days I kept the conversation on quick little facts about our surroundings, I think Alex may have sensed this as it was the first time he's ever shouted back 'have a great weekend mom!' Why weekend I don't know but it sure made me smile. :)

Last night was a stitchy night, supper was a breeze as it was the one day a week to delve into the B-grade pizza box that showed up last week, yum! Then I headed over to Faith Ann's to pick up my ultra cool pumpkin cottage and I finally got to see the house which is so nice, I loved the colours. I'm soo going to paint some of mine after this wedding!!

I did get some stitching in last night after Alex went to bed, story time ran into the beginning of Smallville so we read the last couple pages in the living room. Alex wanted to watch too as he's pretty obsessed with superheros but thankfully as soon as he said that it was a commercial break so he was scooted to bed. I then parked my tooshie on the loveseat and stitched away at the weddding. I think this is going to be the first pattern I make a working copy of to mark up! I dropped by the computer room on my way to bed and logged my character in to pick up her Robes of Arcana and headed to bed.

I'm really not looking forward to grocery shopping tonight, not one little bit! Thankfully I don't need that much as with the trip to gram's for supper friday and the bgrade last night I have two meals to carry forward to this week, yay! Less planning!

Not much notice

Why do I sometimes feel that all the people that make home and school decisions are stay at home moms?? I guess my number one reason would be the lack of notice they give anyone but their inner circle, sigh. Case in point, bizarre organization, a whopping 2 days notice, some of us do exist that actually plan our weeks well in advance to juggle housework/kids/work/evening appointments so as not to take time off of work, thankfully I'm not a working mom with shift work either, 2 days just isn't enough and frankly inexcusible when you can post said information on the schools website. They want their wreath campaign to be successful, well how is is going to be when I just received it at 5 yesterday and have to have it in Thursday when Alex goes to school? It's too bad as I probably could have sold quite a few at work where the prices are pretty good in my opinion, I think I paid15-20 the last time I bought a wreath and this time I'm getting a the big puppy as well as a swag for the side door for the same price, much better ;)

Last night wasn't as stitchiy a night as I was hoping, however I did get lots of quality little boy time so that made it all worth while (and I even won for once at Candyland!!). Tonight there will definitely be some stitching going on as Smallville's on and I might as well start getting caught up on my taped shows ;)

15 more sleeps until we leave for retreat!

Another Movie Night!

Well maybe we weren't out on the town last night but when I arrived home Matt suggested we go for a walk to the Esso and grab a movie for later, knowing that Batman Begins came out last week...So while the roast continued cooking away in the slow cookier we headed over and there were a couple widescreen copies left, yippee!! My poor legs, after a brutal step class walking to the store wasn't as carefree as usual, they felt like lead!! After supper and convincing Alex that roast beef may look stringy when it's tender but really tastes good we made some pumpkin chocolate chip 3 pt muffins and he headed to the tub. He and Matt were reading a story by the time I got my shower and it was off to bed for him. We then settled in to watch Batman but due to the darkness of Gotham my stitching got cut short really quick ;) Oh well, a stitching break here and there never hurt anyone ;)

Today doesn't have anything on the agenda, I may skip the gym as I'm getting a cold and just read Harry Potter as I really need to finish it up before the movie comes out. Tonight I'm hoping to get caught up on at least one taped show before bed which may even be possible before Alex heads to bed where supper is late on evenings Matt's driving ;) Then it'll be trying to finish another chapter of Harry, stitching on the wedding and heading back to bed. ;)

FOUND!!

Yay, Alex's hoodie has been returned after a trip to the wrong household!! I know its silly to get upset about a material object but I'm a bit more attached to it due to it being a) a gift and b)his first ever day of school shirt! (Plus moss/olive green is just too cute on my little red headed guy!!)

Busy as a Bee

This weekend went by so quickly I think I blinked it away. I feel so spoiled that we've had my mom in town for almost a week!! Friday we headed over to my grandmothers for some most excellent spinach tomato lasagna and called it an early night as Alex seemed a bit tired from all the extra attention.

Saturday we got up and put in one of the two new 7 day programmable thermosats, thermostat 2 was more of a problem than the other three as we ran into trouble in the bathroom, more wires than expected and a thermostat directly wired into the box and not on a breaker (leading to very ticked off Matt, a trip to Kents, no power for a couple hours, etc). After Matt returned home I finally planted my fall bulbs, all 63 of them (tulips, daffodils, crocus and something else...can't think of the name right now) just to stay out of the warpath ;) That afternoon we headed up river with mom and gram to visit my great aunt which was neat, I got to look through some very old leather bound albums of my grandmother's ancestors picks. Alex was having fun playing with one of my late great grandmother's stuffed bears and was perplexed by a racoon pelt that was there.

Saturday night we got out for a movie which was fun, something Matt and I haven't done in a long time!! Sunday morning I finally got to talk to the minister and we'll be confirming the date with the church this week, yippee!! We then headed over to gram's and this visit I noticed that she now has my late grandfather's RCAF tags on display as well as a pair of baby moccasins that were hers (what a great history weekend ;)) . We picked up my brother (and got to visit the Degus) and headed to the Snooty Fox, yum! In transit I hit a squirrel, sigh, but he appeared fine as he was climbing the tree when I looked back :( I had their stuffed chicken supreme which is sooo good (chicken stuffed with spinach, feta cheese and garlic with a red pepper sauce), while mom tried out their roasted veggie sandwich. I love that place!!

Sunday afternoon was quiet, as was the evening, just some stitching (pulled out The Wedding again) and watched Cold Case and Desperate Housewives (where smallville was last night I don't know :() I talked with Lisa for a bit about wedding details and Alex called mom on her last night in town to wish her good night, then we talked for a bit more. I've really enjoyed being in the same town with mom even if it's only temporary ;) Tonight will be all about stitching after Alex goes to bed, I'm sure he'll be pretty pooped as he has a field trip this morning down to the Country pumpkin, I hope it stays dry!!

Only 17 more sleeps until we leave for retreat!!

Stitching Blogger's Question

Stitching Blogger's Question
Do you mark or hi-lite your patterns or can you follow them without any markings? Do you make copies to mark up, or do you mark originals?

I normally don't mark up my patterns, I usually don't have mark up copies as most of the designers I stitch have replacement pattern programs, although if I notice the creases starting to get worn while I'm still working on it I will make a working copy. I do good enough keeping my nest of threads, scissors, fabric in order, I can just imagine me trying to juggle a highlighter too ;)

A Fruitless Hunt

Sigh...Tuesday Alex's good Gap hoodie (which looked ultra cute) didn't come home, which has happened a couple times before. After it didn't come home Wednesday I sent a note to school and it's not there and not at afterschool care, he knows better than to take it off on the bus but we'll still check there but I'm pretty bummed. If it wasn't part of his first day of school outfit I wouldn't be nearly as cheesed at the possibility that it got sent home with the wrong kid, eventhough I labelled it, sigh...

I missed Stitchy night Wednesday but got to spend it shopping with my mom which was fun++, I found an awesome present for Alex to boot. I did get to drop in for a bit as Lucy had offered to send the deposit cheque for me and I had money to drop off and pick up, plus my finished projects to show off for a little bit ;) I was glad to hit the sack that night as we'd been to a grueling body pump class at lunch.

Last night after groceries/supper/bath/bed I logged into Warcraft for a bit with Matt and openned up my R&R Reproductions Java Moon for the Samsarah ornament this year and I don't know what they did in the dyeing process but the whiff of whatever it was when I openned the bag almost knocked me out (well just a wee bit of overdramatization there ;)), but it did stink. After working on his belly for a bit it didn't stink as badly. I'm hoping I can finish what threads I have for him this weekend and just be waiting on my 'straglers' order from Janice ;) I think everyone will know when it comes in as I'll be posting finishes left right and center (I'd rather wait than sub threads if possible).

Today's a pretty clean slate, there's the option of going to the newbody class at lunch but I'll wait and see what mom's doing, I do the same routine week after week so having a week to do something different and get some visiting time in makes being flexible fun ;)

To Tell The Truth

Yay, I love dealing with people that are less than truthful! I finally got ahold of the school board transportation director yesterday afternoon and wow, what a story he was told. Thursday she told me she wanted to move the bus because of the guy across the road wanted to drive over (instead of having his kids picked up 4 minutes earlier) then Friday it was 'he's having a hard time getting up in the morning', to which I pointed out how unsafe the other exit (it's a U driveway to an apartment complex) was to which she agreed only to call school board to request the change anyway a couple hours later. Apparently she told school board that all parents had agreed to the change, hello?? and that her kids had been crossing the road all year and that was dangerous. They have been picked up every morning at the same time on the other side, so yay, school has introduced a busy bodied liar into my daily schedule, great! Eventhough I had the stop changed back I'm surprised that they would change it based on one woman's word and without physically assessing the safety for ALL children getting on the bus. This morning I dropped Alex off elsewhere just to avoid the wingnut when she was told the final decision.

Last night Alex and I stopped at Tracy's for her Creative Memories sell off, I picked up alot of neat stuff for my wedding album. Alex followed her 11 year old everywhere and wanted to move in, sigh... After supper, homework, bath, bed, I finally got to watch Mr Deeds which I'd borrowed from Angela. My goodness I laughed, especially where Deeds was saving the cats from the burning building. I stitched some as well although my get up and go for this ornament has got up and left. I stitched in the wrong colour for a little bit last night and will need to check my DMC book to see if there's much of a colour difference between 553 and 554, sigh. I don't find the one that I stitched in coordinates that well with the adjacent colour but I can't see one shade making that big a difference, it's more of a conflict of hue.

Tonight I have nothing on the schedule, hopefully mom is coming to visit tonight which would be nice. Eventhough we saw mom and dad on Thanksgiving it was kind of hectic so it'll be nice to have a quality visit. I'm sure she'll hear all about Alex finally getting to be the class leader yesterday which he's been waiting to be since school started. He was soo proud yesterday!!

A Super Stitchy Weekend

This weekend was the complete opposite of last, a VERY nice change. Lots of stitching involved!! I finished Britty Christmas Kitty, restitched the twill stitch on my Love Needleroll and beaded it (now waiting for the threads to come in), stitched the majority of Cindy Valentine's Sugarplum (just waiting for NN thread for some klosters and the beads to come in) both sides, and started the Water's Edge ornament incase it's the retreat ornament this year as it was the only one suggested so far, thought I'd better start it as I needed to psych myself up for it, but now that I see it on fabric I'm falling in love with it (one of the ones where the picture is deceiving).

Alex and I headed to Wallace and Grommit on Saturday, had to move twice though, once for a three month old and another for a birthday party, I'm so glad we made the last minute decision to move away from the birthday party as they really acted up, just what you want after spending $25.00 on tickets and concessions. Besides the annoyances the movie was awesome! Alex is finally at the age where he's picking up on some of the more tame subtle humor, although the middle age spread jam was totally over his head. Oh... I almost forgot the penguins from Madagascar featurette, my goodness they make me laugh with 'Hoover Dam' and 'Shitake Mushroom'.

Yesterday we attempted to see the minister after church but our service ended up running into the 11:45 service, which never happens, so I sent an e-mail and if I don't hear from him I'll see him next Sunday (I'm just so anxious to get the ball rolling especially where the reception site is tentatively booked!!)

Another Little Happy Dance

Britty Christmas Kitty

18 lbs Down!!

Maybe stress is a good thing, down to 18lbs even after Canadian turkey day ;)

Stressed To The Max

My goodness, my stress level is through the roof! Why oh why couldn't Matt listen to me when I told him you needed to book things in advance+++, right now we've possibly got a room on the 20th of May but there is one couple that had it tentatively booked before us, however the hotel can't get ahold of them to get the confirmation cheque so I don't know how that's going to go. Right now I have the hotel tentatively booked for the 13th, which doesn't give me much breathing room between maid of honour duties but I've got a fiancé that doesn't want to budge, grrr....

Then I get a call yesterday from 'dream job' that they need someone even better than my supervisor, do people not realize that not all organizational structures are the same?? I rarely see my manager and to do my review my supervisor provides him with all the info. Let alone HR seemed to think I could just track him down like that, HAH! that was at 3 yesterday and he's STILL in meetings. I've decided with the surgery and wedding stress that I'm in no frame of mind to certify for bilingual so I have to break it to them that I only want to be put in for the anglophone position, between med tests and appointments and actual work meetings and training I really can't take anymore time off. Ughhh...

Then yesterday at the bus one of the fathers wanted to move the bus stop as he 'couldn't make a left' to get home (from a U driveway, turn your friggin car around). He yelled at me this morning when I took my son to the regular stop to which I replied that unless he went through school board to get it approved which he never would due to safety concerns I was staying put. The bus comes to the other side of the road stop 3 minutes before ours if you can't get up 3 minutes earlier then drive your kids to school, don't endanger other peoples kids by putting the bus at an angle where it's end is too close (but not directly in the line of vision) to a joining street so that turning traffic can't see the lights. Good grief.

With all that I was stressed to the max by the time I got home last night, I put a frozen pizza in the oven which I rarely do..., after we ate I laid down for a bit before the christmas bazarre meeting and slept through half of it so I decided not to go. Instead I finished stitching what I need to on the LOVE needleroll, found the remainder of the threads for Britty Christmas Kitty and then headed to bed. Here's hoping I get ALOT of stitching therapy on the weekend!!

Stitchers Question Of The Week

How do you ‘non-hoopists’ who use a rotation system handle it (as it seems to be lot easier if you are in good terms with hoop)? Do you have several scroll frames? Do you use Q-snaps or maybe something completely different? Or do you just have one or two big projects and others are small enough to be kept in hand while stitching?

I'm a stitching free spirit, when I taught myself to stitch it was with itty bitty kits that were too small for hoops so I never really got into the hoop, qsnap, scroll bar craze so I guess this really doesn't apply to me.

Jump For Joy HD

Joy Needleroll (JCS 03)-Jeannette Douglas

Well it was actually stitched on the weekend but here's my HD picture ;) Now to get the ribbon to tie the ends!! I should have cropped but was too tired last night to access the software by the time this arrived via e-mail last night from dad ;) I plugged away at restitching the Love needleroll which is now all ready to bead and am just waiting for the pearl petite treasure braid and fyrewerks to finish it. I'll probably redo the twill stitch as the stitch instructions in the back do not give the same diagonal effect, e-mailed Jeannette and am waiting to see if she did anything special or if it was just her thread. I've figured out a way to accomplish the same effect and I'm hoping she's just going to confirm what I've already thought of ;)

I've been so zonked for energy this week it isn't even funny. I even taped Lost (not to happy with ABC for moving it so late in the evening) so I could hit the sheets! I'll probably get caught up at 8 tonight seeing as Global no longer airs Joey before Survivor, sigh... Speaking of Joey we watched last weeks and when we turned it off the vcr just happened to be on Friends and my goodness I hadn't realized how much I missed that show! It was the Christmas in Tulsa episode with all of the flashbacks and I then put in a request to start collection the old seasons on DVD. ;) Oh wait, I have a Christmas Bizarre meeting tonight, maybe I won't get caught up at 8 after all... sigh... Why oh why do they only give people 2 days notice about these things, don't they realize that most mothers work now a days and with gas prices up some of us actually make an effort to lump all of our trips in one?? sigh...

Only one more sleep until the weekend thank goodness!

Maid of Honor Happy Dance...

Omigosh, I've been asked to be a maid of honor!!! I'm sooo excited. I've never been in a wedding before (besides reading), yippee!! I was so excited just about the engagement and I found out about that a day ago that I'm pretty darn bubbly now!! Then to top it off Matt gave me a date tonight, so here I am waiting not so patiently for the church office to open at 9!

As for stitching I did do some last night, I have the hearts at the top of the Jeanette Douglas Love needleroll stitched in, and one snow flake (actually the cardinal is done but needs to be restitched due to an off by one, I dislike stitching over one, error which then put the other snowflake off). I also think I'm going to redo the twill stitch to get the same diagonal effect that's on the model. So essentially after lost tonight I should have everything (maybe even some of the hemstitching) done and just be waiting for my RB threads to arrive.

Tonight should be pretty relaxed, as was last night, not having to cook for two days straight is a godsend!

Happy Thanksgiving

Whoa, what a weekend!! I think I need another long weekend just to recoup ;) We spent most of Saturday/Sunday doing that extra little bit of cleaning, dusting the blinds, stripping the beds and doing the prep work for the meal, peeling the potatoes, making and cubing the bread for stuffing, chopping the onions, making pre dinner munchies and some squares. Sunday afternoon Alex and I took a little break and headed over to Green Village to check out their annual halloween maze. Alex thought it was just great. Then we got some icecream and checked out their halloween decorations, picking up a bat wind twirly thing to hang where the hummingbird feeder is in the summer. They've started to get their christmas decorations out but the big trees weren't up yet so I saved my mailing list gift certificate for another trip ;) Monday went off without a hitch, with the exception of the after meal conversation, I swear if one more person suggests I elope I'm going to scream. It wasn't my decision to wait this long to get engaged so why should I give up on my dream wedding, some people's lack of enthusiasm about the wedding really riles me up! Thankfully my two new 7 day programmable thermostats arrived thanks to dad so I had those to play with after everyone left. Now we just need two more for the master bedroom and Alex's room :)It's so nice to be able to save energy and wake up to a warm house!!

On the stitching side this weekend was surprisingly productive. I finished my Joy Needleroll and just need to pick up some ribbon to ornamentify it, all the finishing sewing is done. My Silkweaver bundle arrived on Friday so I started on my Love needleroll only to realize my Needle Necessities was AWOL so I had to put it down after 2.5 bands (mind you I found it Monday, after spending the weekend convinced it was at work), after that I started Britty Christmas Kitty, working over one when you've been cleaning all day isn't nearly as relaxing!! Britty should be done this week and Love should be done minus the Rainbow Gallery Fyrewerks and pearl petite treasure braid I'm waiting for. I've decided to take the entire month off of stitching the wedding and working on ornaments, I should have a fair showing for retreat ;)

Seventeen

Yippe, the official total lbs gone is 17, plateaued around the birthday weeks but now back on track, yippee!

Still No Serenity

Well we didn't get to Serenity last night either, sigh... I wasn't much in the tv watching mode either, but I did watch Night Stalker again which was pretty good. It's amazing how my tv watching has switched, Thursday night's are pretty dead now (well if we were in the states I'd have Smallville to watch but it airs here on Wednesday, sigh). I logged a little time into WoW and worked my my Jeannette Douglas Joy Needleroll which will be finished tonight, they have been such a delight to work on! Here's hoping my ornament cuts come in from Silkweaver tonight so I can get a jump on Love until my Rainbow Gallery FyreWerks and white treasure braid come in!!

When we got home last night after going winter boot shopping (I've learned the hard way to do it sooner than later or else it ends up costing $$$) and surprisingly finding a General Grievous for Alex's stocking (he has one that is minus an arm) we headed home to put up my new pumpkin windsock. When I was trapsing across the wet yard (grass is STILL GROWING, arghhhh....) I noticed a beige spot on my indian corn! I went to investigate as I thought it was one of the husks falling down...nope EATEN!!!! Good grief. When I mentioned it to Matt when he got in he said that Wednesday when he was working at home he heard banging on one of the doors and went to investigate, no intruder at the kitchen, looked out the living room and nothing there either. He threw back the curtain on the front door and whoosh, off takes a blue jay. So much for my 4$ Thanksgiving decoration!

My appointment with the doctor went well, I was so pleased. She warned me it may take awhile to get into the surgeon I wanted but my gut really told me to stay away from the bozo at the breast clinic. I was later venting to a friend of mine who had a relative that had seen said bozo and personally regarded said bozo as a cold hearted, uncaring butcher. I'm a bit more at ease with the thought of going to see a surgeon we've already had contact with before with Alex who everyone else highly recommends. yippee!!

Now to think of how I'd say all this in french to have any hope of passing my bilingual test...